Ignatieff yet to deliver substance

By the standards set by Stéphane Dion's meandering farewell
address Friday night, Michael Ignatieff passed the test of his formal
acceptance speech yesterday with flying colours. But by those of an
accomplished political animal such as Jean Chrétien – who delivered the
only real barnburner of the convention this weekend – he still has some
way to go before he hits a ball out of the park with a speech that
truly defines his leadership.

By the standards set by Stéphane Dion's meandering farewell address Friday night, Michael Ignatieff passed the test of his formal acceptance speech yesterday with flying colours. But by those of an accomplished political animal such as Jean Chrétien – who delivered the only real barnburner of the convention this weekend – he still has some way to go before he hits a ball out of the park with a speech that truly defines his leadership.

By default as much as by design, Ignatieff's keynote address was deemed to be the high point of an otherwise uneventful convention. Rarely have so many members of a federal party come together to do so little as the 3,000 Liberals who gathered in Vancouver this weekend.

In style, Ignatieff certainly rose to the occasion, but in substance, he might as well have served up a cardboard cake lathered in sticky icing.

Those who were looking for Ignatieff to use his speech to give definition to his leadership will have to wait some more. Yesterday's speech was as short on specifics as it was long on lofty rhetoric, much of it increasingly familiar.

The address included a fiery attack on Stephen Harper and what Ignatieff describes as his divisive approach to Canada. But one would parse the eight-page text in vain for any hint of whether the Liberals are even considering cutting off the lifeline they have extended to the minority Conservative government since the House of Commons reopened in January.

If the omissions of the speech are anything to go by, the Liberals have yet to come up with a substantive reason to force Canada back to the polls.

In a successful show of unity, three former Liberal prime ministers who once were arch-rivals set aside their differences to rally behind Ignatieff this weekend, but, in the end, the shadows that loomed the largest on the proceedings were those of Harper and Dion.

Ignatieff has already acknowledged the key role Harper played in transforming what should have been a competitive and potentially divisive leadership convention into a weekend coronation. But the Prime Minister's influence went beyond recklessly accelerating Dion's demise; three years of Conservative rule seem to have finally reminded the Liberals that the values that unite them are bigger than the petty wars that have for so long divided them.

As for Dion, if he served a primary purpose the past three days, it has been to make Ignatieff look good.

Any regret some Liberals might have felt at seeing him go was largely dispelled by a long, rambling farewell speech Friday that featured a lot of the woolly thinking that induced almost one million habitual Liberal supporters to stay home in the last election.

At least in Ignatieff, they have a leader who can hold forth efficiently in both official languages, and who is certain to hold his own in the televised debates of the next campaign, two features that could not be taken for granted in Dion's case.

Dion's 2006 leadership victory was the unlikely product of a convention floor deal struck among various Liberal factions. Yesterday, the party moved to ensure that does not ever happen again.

The convention overwhelmingly endorsed an amendment to the party constitution that ensures future leaders will be chosen by a membership-wide vote. Three years ago in Montreal, a pre-Dion Liberal party had soundly defeated the same resolution.

Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column normally appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

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